Thorns of Reality
by doodlelover
Summary: It hurts; it pricks, it pulls, it scratches and it burns. It aches so badly, but it's worth it while it lasts. SasuNaru


**Hola ; So...I have almost no idea where this came from. I was staring at a blank word processor for awhile...and then I started this!**

**And let's all thank my wonderful new beta, Heaven Cobra--who is wonderful in every aspect! She helped me edit, spruce, and even came up with a kickass summary for me(along with a title)! Ahaha. I don't know what I ever did without her!**

**Disclaimer: Do you see Izumo and Kotetsu making out? No? Then I don't own it...yet.**

**So...without further ado...**

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_**Thorns of Reality**_

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Naruto clutched the sheet in his hand. His eyes seemed to be memorizing each thread, committing to memory each string that made the delicate piece of cloth what it was. He watched the ways it would twist and turn, winding with each other, the never ending pattern seeming ceaseless in his eyes. But it was just a piece of cloth - a sheet. Nothing more and nothing less.

He supposed that was why he was concentrating so hard on it. It made no sense, really. Why would anyone observe something this closely if it was that meaningless?

The answer itself was in its worthlessness.

He couldn't help thinking that he was the same. That - in some weird, twisted way - he was the thin coverlet.

Yes, the similarity was unmistakable; his mind seemed to dull at the thought of meaningless, trivial things like comparing himself to an inanimate object. The pain he felt spread in a numb, icy wave polluted with these thoughts as he concentrated his hardest on memorizing each and every twist of the bedspread.

His brow was creased in deep thought, beads of perspiration trickling down the side of his face in the mid-summer warmth. Even in the morning the heat was unbearable - the soft vice of sleep had already faded from his mind and gave way to the pain of memories and the mild discomfort of the seasonal weather.

"Usuratonkachi." the delicate silence was shattered as a familiar monotone voice rang out, splintering the peaceful state that Naruto had so carefully cultivated.

His thoughts ran into each other, crashing and burning as Sasuke emerged from the bathroom, towel-drying his hair in only his black silk boxers. From here Naruto was just close enough to see every shining bead of water that dripped down that perfectly chiseled chest, yet too far away to reach out and touch it. This indescribable feeling of being too near and too far away ripped through his chest, folding and crushing upon itself to rest in a hard knot where his heart should have been.

Naruto averted his gaze and looked back down to the sheets, the fabric still clutched tightly in his white-knuckled hands. The way it folded over and made so many new designs was even more interesting than the colorful fibers it was composed of, bright hues offset by lurking shadows that were crouching patiently behind every crease. When he let go slightly it would shift, and then make even more dark shadows. The folds would mutate and it was like a completely different shape than before - almost alive in its shifting.

Sasuke continued to watch calmly as the sound of fabric brushing against itself filled the small bedroom. The towel he was using had stilled, and he noticed the poorly concealed pain reflecting in Naruto's eyes.

He reached a hand out, but stopped it midway to its destination and let the appendage fall to his side. A feeling of complete uselessness washed over the room in a violent wave, his shoulders sagging with the effort of keeping upright against the sudden rush of feeling.

"I..." but the boy couldn't finish his sentence. The sound hung in the air for several moments before Sasuke started again, but there seemed to be something inside him that wouldn't - no couldn't - let the words leave his mouth.

Naruto didn't look up. He didn't acknowledge Sasuke's presence. The blond just kept sitting and messing with the sheets as he had been, watching as all the different ways he moved it would change the entire view of it. It was comforting to have something to concentrate on, but his heart wrenched violently into his throat each time the sheet in front of him took shape and dissolved into a new, completely different form.

He could move it into so many diverse positions, but there was no way he could twist, convolute or connive a way to make it more than just a sheet. Just. A. Sheet. Doomed to be a sheet for as long as it remained held together by those fibers that defined its very existence. He wished he could change that. God, how he wished he could just change it for even one miserable moment.

But his thoughts were drifting from their usual path, taking a dark turn as his mind caught on the thorns of that deadly rose named Reality. His eyes widened and took on the likeness of dinner plates as his tan hands reached into his blond mess of hair and gripped it with a white-knuckled intensity that would have scared him if his consciousness hadn't been submerged in the memories floating and rising slowly to the surface of his mind.

A sob tore through the curtain-dimmed room, coating everything in the space with a bone-chilling intensity.

Naruto hunched over and buried his face into the object of his placid thoughts, his tears quickly soaked into the thin fabric and staining it with the clear, salty liquid pouring from his blue eyes. The sobs and broken cries that ripped through his throat seemed to reverberate off the walls, the sound coming back to him in loud, haunting echoes that kept sounding over and over inside his head.

His breathing became erratic, inhaling and exhaling in short bursts that blurred his vision and made his head light. He only hoped that his body could be forgiving just this once and let him pass out on the slightly damp sheet.

It was only after he felt the bed dip noticeably that he was aware of Sasuke wrapping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him close. He leaned into the touch but was not soothed in the least - instead, the warmth of the muscles and thumping of a calm heartbeat against his shoulder worsened the ache. The ache, in turn, only worked to increase the pain in his entire body that made him sob even harder.

Sasuke smoothed down his wild blond hair in a calming motion. His fingers tangled into the mess of golden locks, sometimes pulling harder than was necessary just to remind the boy in his arms that he was there.

Eventually the sobs died down to exhausted sniffles and slight hiccups, his frame shaking slightly less and the tears coming in small rivulets instead of the torrents that had poured down his cheeks earlier. Sasuke continued to hug the shaking blonde close to him in a warm embrace, muttering sweet nothings as he rubbed soothing circles along the smooth expanse of Naruto's back.

Naruto sat there motionlessly, digging his head into the muscled chest he was leaning against and letting his tears plaster his blond hair against his face. He didn't feel like crying anymore, but the light throb in his chest remained, like it always had. Why had he expected this time to be any different?

Maybe because...

His arms shifted of their own accord. He lifted them just enough so that he could wrap them around Sasuke's waist. His body relaxed with the warmth it brought, but his mind and heart screamed in protest.

"Sasuke..." he mumbled quietly.

"Yeah? What is it, dobe?" The last word was accented teasingly, a lighthearted undertone slipping into his question to lighten the situation a little.

Naruto tightened his hold as tears threatened to spill out again. "Say it again..." he shut his eyes tight. "...Say it again..."

"You're such a dobe..."

This time he did let out a broken cry, unable to hold it in at the utterance of that name. "Please keep...keep saying it...!"

Sasuke complied, brushing back the blond's bangs and placing a light kiss on the other's forehead. Every time he would brush his lips on the boy's skin, he would whisper the obscene nickname over and over, calming Naruto on the outside while a hysterical fervor built itself from the bottom of his stomach to tighten and solidify in his chest.

Lost in his own mind, blood flashed in Naruto's eyes. The scene came and went, replaying in his head until he was literally screaming for it to stop, but Sasuke knew what he was supposed to do. He kept calling the other by the same name, never once stopping.

Without thinking about it, Naruto clenched as hard as he could around the one holding him, bringing his head up to meet those soft pink lips and wanting to feel the light buzzing in his chest that only contact as intimate as feeling Sasuke's breath on his mouth could bring about.

He needed it. More than anyone could ever know.

Before he could satisfy even the slightest of his hunger, Sasuke disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Naruto met nothing but air in his arms and felt nothing but the sudden absence of warmth throughout his entire being.

He didn't even stop in confusion as he crashed down on the mattress. He held himself up on his forearms, pained screams and sobs streaming past his lips as his hands clutched the sheets under him.

"Sasuke...!" broken bits of the same name played over like a scratched and split record, the beat of his heart skipping along with his hiccups of panic.

The same image, the same bloody scene ran passed his eyes. The same thing he'd been seeing for the past three years.

"No..." his head was pushed into the pillow underneath him as he tried to will everything away.

"I can try again..." he choked out.

As long as he was smart and made sure to not lose himself in the moment, he could have Sasuke. He could have just a small moment of warmth and comfort again. And now, he'd ruined the first time it had actually worked so well. When he'd held the other like that just a few moments ago...it was so real.

"It was so fucking real this time...!" But he could always try again to have that same embrace some other time, he reminded himself. "I can--" he let out another sob.

With shaking hands and shining tear tracks on his face he made one hand sign, and then stared with an expressionless face as a duplicate of himself appeared at the foot of his bed.

The shadow clone already knew what to do, also making a hand sign and morphing into the shape he knew so well.

Naruto smiled at the form in front of him.

"...Sasuke..." he muttered silently. "Go take a shower. You're probably all sweaty because of that mission you went on, huh?"

The object of his attention nodded.

"Then go take one, I'll be right here. Right here. I promise."

The raven-haired boy disappeared into the other room. After the door shut and the sound of running water filled his ears, he burrowed under the sheets of the bed.

Azure eyes stared down at the hands clutching at those tear-stained sheets he had been buried, sobbing in a moment ago. The sheets made an intricate design as they folded over each other and as he looked at the insignificant piece of cloth, he wondered in his mind--

Maybe I'm the same as these sheets.

Not more than a second later, the door to the bathroom swung open.

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**Sasuke: The authoress would like to let you know that she wants you to interpret this as you wish.**

**Naruto: And that she's too afraid to tell you that herself!**

**Remember my little buttercups...Review!**


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